Burns Night

I always forget about Burns Night, which seems to be odd, given how much I love whiskey- and I almost forgot about it this year, but kept seeing Laphroig ads popping up in my Facebook feed so checked my calendar and here we are. I worked tonight, so I didn't have time to get a Burns Supper set up, but #SquadGoals, you know. One of these years I'll have one. Though granted, I haven't the faintest idea where one gets a haggis. Or bagpipes...  these things seem very involved.

True confession: I haven't read too much of the poems of Robert Burns- 'To A Mouse' in it's original Scottish brogue is probably my favorite. But since this night is all about poetry, I think I should go with the poem that's sort of been my obsession for the past year or so.

Ulysses, by Alfred Lord Tennyson was something I stumbled into when I finally finished by epic binge of Frasier. It was used to excellent effect in the series finale and I've read it multiple times since then. It's really stuck with me for some reason. I'm not a huge poetry fan. I don't like the lack of hard and fast rules about poetry- either everything means something else or nothing means everything. I don't know- in general, I don't know enough about poetry to really recognize good poetry consistently when I see it, but I know what I like and I dig this. The whole poem is a bit long to quote in full here, but the last few lines are pretty good:
 Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'We are not now that strength which in old daysMoved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;One equal tempter of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
I'll be honest: I've been running on fumes for most of the week now, so I'm not 100% sure I'm going to make it to the liquor cabinet tonight, but for some reason, I always find myself hungry when I get home, so I might take a wee tipple before I head upstairs to bed. But even if it's not tonight, I'm going to sit down with a good dram tomorrow for sure and raise a toast to Robbie Burns

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